My Bones Will Keep

‘When was this?’

‘Just after ye left for Tigh-Osda. Oh, ye need not think we were stealing it. It’s a’ there for them it’s meant for.’

‘And who might they be?’

‘The Grants of Coinneamh Lodge, maist like. It’s common talk that Mistress Grant was closer to the old laird than some others.’

Chapter 22

The Last Word

‘ “I tell ’e,” he said to the vicar, bringing his fist with a smack into the palm of his hand, “I tell ’e the burials be goin’ to the daags … But four holes to fill in a twalmonth, setting aside the Lunnon man kilt by the Ramps, and the corpse pickt out o’ Spook Pool, neither o’ them the rightful property o’ the parish.” ’

Angus Evan Abbott

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‘Well,’ said Detective Chief-Inspector Gavin, when he rejoined his wife and Dame Beatrice at the latter’s Kensington house, ‘you both seem to have had quite a holiday.’

‘I think it’s absolutely stinking,’ said Laura, ‘that we didn’t discover the treasure.’

‘Dame B. didn’t intent that you should. What do you say, Counsel for the Defence?’

‘It might have been embarrassing,’ Dame Beatrice admitted. ‘It seemed better to give Corrie the hint and allow him to get rid of it in our absence.’

‘Good heavens!’ said Laura, disgusted. ‘Is that why we went to interview Ian at Tigh-Osda? But Mrs Corrie said – ! Wasn’t her story true?’

‘Partly,’ said Dame Beatrice soothingly, ‘but only partly. The treasure was still in the cellar when we left for Tigh-Osda and I have no doubt whatever that, as soon as we were safely away from Tannasgan, Mrs Corrie told her husband where it was and advised him to move it while we were out of the house. Unless I am greatly mistaken, we shall see no more of your sometime host, though. There is nothing now for him on Tannasgan.’

She was not mistaken. Later they heard, through Gavin’s contact with the Edinburgh police, that Macbeth had been flown to South America, with the treasure, having made only a pretence of leaving the neighbourhood of Tannasgan in order to keep watch on the Corries. Young Grant had given himself up to the authorities and had made a full confession of how, unwittingly and without malice, he had delivered the coup de grace to the already dying laird. Young Bradan contrived to commit suicide before he could be brought to trial.

‘Marmaduke,’ quoted Gavin solemnly, after having given these melancholy details, ‘was a bad lad, I’m afraid. There’s no doubt he hit his father over the head in Inverness with, as we say, intent.’

‘Well, I don’t wonder,’ said Laura, ‘with a father like Cu Dubh. And was Mrs Grant of Coinneamh Lodge really young Bradan’s mother?’

‘I didn’t find that out, but there is no other story, and there was the Salmon which went astray.’

‘You mean that Cu Dubh wasn’t a Scot?’

‘Devil a bit of it. May partly account for his unpopularity, of course. Ours are a prejudiced, sentimental, insular, irrational people.’

‘Irrational?’ said Laura, seizing on the one adjective with which she totally disagreed. ‘Why? What makes you say that?’

‘The kilt. The sporran. The Gaelic language. The Highland weather. Robert Burns. Tossing the caber. Deer- stalking. Bannockburn. That is to name a few items which leap immediately to the mind. There are probably dozens more.’

‘Explain yourself, you renegade!’

‘Now, now! No rude epithets. Who on earth else but us Scots would sport a kilt except in a warm country? It’s simply shrieking for rheumatism. Who else would carry his purse on his lower abdomen – to put it politely – when he could use pockets? Who else would spell the word lamhan (hands) when it’s pronounced lavin? Who else would live in a country where it’s always raining? Who else would revere a poet who wrote in a dialect that scarcely any civilised person can understand? Who else would have invented a sport which is both terribly strenuous and completely unspectacular? Who else would crawl on his belly up mountain burns and over supersaturated heather, peat hags and other assorted bogs, to bag an animal whose flesh has to be practically putrified before it’s chewable? Who else would have won Bannockburn?’

‘Ah, now you’re talking!’ said Laura. ‘Did you ever find out, by the way, why Mrs Grant borrowed my car that morning?’

‘Oh, yes. I was going to tell you that. She did go to Tannasgan, as you thought at the time.’

‘What for?’

‘To throw stones at An Tigh Mor.’

‘What?’

‘Apparently that which had made you drunk had made her bold, and she hated Bradan. Of course, we don’t really know why.’

‘I wasn’t drunk!’

‘No, but, as the Irish Policeman (was it?) said, you had drink taken. I only hope (from the same source) that